When the jolts racketing through him finally abated his face was buried in Amalie’s hair, which was sprawled over the pillow like a fan. Her arms were locked tightly round him; the only sound was the heavy thudding beat of their hearts.
Lethargy spread through him and he eased himself off her, something dim in the back of his sluggish mind reminding him he had the condom to dispose of. Dragging himself off the bed, he could feel her eyes on him as he padded to the bathroom.
He returned a few moments later, his chest tightening to see she’d slipped under the silk sheets. A shy smile played on her lips.
He hadn’t thought this through. As a rule, he didn’t bring women to his palace apartment, preferring to conduct his affairs in the privacy of his villa, or wherever in the world he happened to be.
It suddenly dawned on him that not only had he broken his unwritten rule of not conducting an affair within the palace walls, but he’d also run from Helios’s ball. It was inconceivable that his absence would go unnoticed.
He couldn’t bring himself to care. His grandfather was in bed and his brothers would understand. They’d both had their heads turned by beautiful women over the years. The ball was for Helios, and to a lesser extent for Theseus—not for him. He would never need to marry. The burden of continuing the Kalliakis dynasty was in his brothers’ hands.
Now that the flush of lust had been satisfied he should get dressed, get a chauffeur to take Amalie back to the cottage. Except...
She stretched under the covers, that smile still playing on her lips. ‘Can we do that again?’
* * *
Amalie pulled Talos’s shirt, discarded on the floor the evening before, closer around her, catching a wonderful whiff of his woody scent. She sighed dreamily.
That had to count as the most wonderful night of her life.
It amazed her to think she’d spent so long denying this sensual side of herself, marvelled that it had ever scared her. What had she been so frightened of? How could such pleasure be terrifying?
She gazed at Talos sleeping, from her vantage point of the bay window, where she’d settled herself earlier. She’d woken with the sun, the buzz in her blood from their passionate night still alive in her veins, zinging too loudly for her to fall back into sleep. Usually she did everything she could to eke out as much sleep as she could muster. But not today.
The view from his bedroom window was stunning, overlooking the palace maze. In the distance lay the open-air theatre the gala was to be held in—an enormous round dome, cut into the ground like something from Middle Earth. Judging by the view, and the fact that if she craned her neck she could see turrets in the distance, she figured his apartment must be in the far left tower of the palace.
The view from the window was nothing compared to the vision on the bed, curled on his side, one arm splayed out where she had been sleeping, as if he’d been seeking her. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back under the covers, but was determined to hold back and let him sleep. After all their lovemaking he would be exhausted.
She smiled. In sleep he looked curiously vulnerable.
For the first time in her life she felt complete. Like a woman. Like she’d discovered a glorious secret. And at that moment she was happy to savour it and hold it close.
Talos stirred, his hand groping. He lifted his head.
‘Bonjour,’ she said softly, resting her chin on her knee.
He stretched onto his back and smiled lazily. ‘Kalimera, little songbird. Did you sleep well?’
She gave him a coy smile. ‘No.’
‘You should come back to bed, then.’
‘I should,’ she agreed, adopting the same mock serious tone.
He threw the sheets off him, unabashedly displaying his large erection.
Moisture filled her mouth and pooled down low. Sliding off the ledge of the bay window, she padded over to the bed. No sooner had she climbed on than Talos’s huge hands were at her waist, pulling her over to straddle him.
He stared into her eyes, trailing a hand down the valley between her breasts. ‘No regrets?’
She shook her head and sighed as his fingers found her nipple. ‘No regrets.’
‘Then make love to me, you sexy woman, and prove it.’
Sexy? Her? Sexy was a word she’d never associated with herself before.
Yet as she sheathed him, then sank down onto him, taking the whole of him inside her, she realised she’d never felt as sexy and as alive in her life.
And, dear heaven, it felt amazing.
WAS IT TRULY possible to become addicted to sex?
The question played happily in Amalie’s mind as she sat beside Talos in his Maserati, making polite noises as he pointed out a pile of stones he assured her had once been a monastery. Because there was no doubt about it—she was in lust. Glorious, incredible, beautifully reciprocated desire. It was basic biology at its finest. And it didn’t frighten her in the slightest.
He’d taken her out for lunch in Resina, the main town on the island, and now they were driving back to her cottage, taking the scenic route through Agon’s verdant mountains, avoiding wandering sheep and goats who seemingly had no sense of the danger posed by moving vehicles.
The view on this blue, cloudless day was spectacular, the Mediterranean was gleaming in the distance, and the temperature was sitting comfortably in the mid-twenties. She was mostly oblivious to it, too busy anticipating the moment they’d return to the privacy of the cottage to concentrate on nothing so mundane as scenery.
In the two weeks since the ball they hadn’t spent a night apart. They’d returned to her cottage on the Sunday, leaving through Talos’s private exit so at least she’d been spared the embarrassment of bumping into his brothers, and had more or less lived there since.
Amalie would work on the score during the day, while he went to his villa or the palace to do his own work. In the evening he would collect her and take her to the gym, then they would return to the cottage and make love, and would often still be awake when the sun came up.
She could now play her violin for him with hardly any nerves at all, although she still didn’t feel ready to play his grandmother’s piece. She wanted to be note-perfect for that. Her orchestra would arrive on Agon tomorrow morning; her first scheduled rehearsal with them was in the afternoon. They would know then if she had truly made progress.
For today, Talos had insisted on taking her out and showing her Agon, arguing that it was a Saturday and that in the three and a half weeks she’d been on his island she’d hardly seen any of it. She would have been happy to stay at the cottage and make love, but he’d brushed her arguments aside with his usual authority, claiming her lips to whisper, ‘We’ll only be gone a few hours.’
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked now, casting a quick sideways glance at her.
Her gaze drifted to his hands, holding the steering wheel with deft assuredness in much the same manner as he handled her.
‘Sex,’ she answered, tingles racing through her at the thought of their imminent return to privacy and all the things they would do...
He burst into deep laughter. ‘Do you ever think about anything else?’
She pretended to think about it before shaking her head. ‘No.’